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Dr.
Rickman is new Steinway Artist
Volusia County Music Teachers Association (VCMTA) is
proud to announce that our colleague, Dr. Michael
Rickman, has been honored as a Steinway Artist. The
following quote is from the letter that Dr. Rickman
received from Brian Hunter, Steinway and Sons
Director of Concert and Artist Activities.
"Although you are already considered a member of the
Steinway family through your personal association
with our piano, the high standard you have set with
your artistic and professional achievements make it
most appropriate that you are now formally included
among a list of the most accomplished and
discriminating performing artists in the world."
VCMTA is honored to have
Dr. Rickman as part of our group, providing numerous
scholarship programs for our chapter, and having his
students on recitals, in concerto competitions, and
in local and state musical programs.
To all the members of FSMTA who have known Dr.
Rickman through his many years of service to our
organization, please send your congratulations to
him on this prestigious recognition of his
distinguished international career!
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Mary Lou Krosnick Receives Florida State Music
Teachers Association's Highest Award
FSMTA’s Excellence in Teaching award is
the highest and most prestigious award conferred by this
organization and is reserved for its most outstanding
teachers based on criteria such as teaching and
professional achievement, student success, participation
and accomplishments in local, state, and national
programs, and community involvement.
We are honored to present the award this
year to a most distinguished and extraordinary teacher
and performer, Mrs. Mary Lou Wesley Krosnick of
Jacksonville.
Mrs. Krosnick, the daughter of a
Juilliard alumnus, made her debut performance at age 14,
when she won the NY Philharmonic Symphony Society’s
Young Composers Contest with her composition The Rain
Comes, which was later performed in Carnegie Hall.
She is an internationally acclaimed
performing and recording pianist who, in her own words,
“specializes in performing challenging, mostly major and
virtuosic works by recognized masters of classical
literature,” and was a former soloist with Boston Pops
under Arthur Fiedler and the Jacksonville Symphony under
Willis Page. She has performed at Carnegie Hall and
Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and was a national
winner for the Teachers Division of the International
Recording Competition and National Guild of Piano
Teachers. She has been a recording artist for the
Musical Heritage Society and Florida Public Radio in
addition to being a featured soloist at Rome Festival in
Italy for three summers. She was included in the 2006
edition of Great Women of the 21st Century, which only
recognizes 1000 women in the entire world.
Mrs. Krosnick’s contributions in music
education have been many and great. She holds degrees
from Juilliard, Yale, and the University of Wisconsin
and began teaching at Jacksonville University in 1978,
where she still holds the distinguished artist-in-
residence title. She developed her own pedagogy for
structurally analyzing and then tackling technical
challenges resulting in a meticulous methodology for
teaching her piano students. She served as Head of piano
faculty at Sewannee Summer Music Center for 11 years,
and most recently was selected as one of “75
Distinguished Dolphins”, in honor of Jacksonville
University’s 75th anniversary, for having been deemed to
have made the greatest contribution to school and
community. She has produced multiple student winners in
local, state, and national competitions (the list is 4
pages long covering 30 years), with an impressive record
of 25 straight years of having winning students in FSMTA
District IV competitions. She is nationally certified by
MTNA, a published author, and has been recognized by the
Arts in Education Program sponsored by FL Dept. of
State.
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Martha Mier
is an internationally recognized composer and
clinician who joined Alfred Music Publishing in
1989. Her educational piano music for students of
all levels has made her one of today's most popular
composers. Students worldwide enjoy playing her
music, including the popular Jazz, Rags & Blues
series and the Romantic Impressions series.
Martha graduated from
Florida State University, where she was a member of
Sigma Alpha Iota, the national honorary music
fraternity. Martha owned a piano studio in Lake City, FL
for many years and has been active in church music and
as a professional accompanist. She is a member of the
Music Teachers National Association, the Florida State
Music Teachers Association, and the National Guild of
Piano Teachers. Martha is a state and nationally
certified teacher of piano through these professional
organizations.
Martha is a frequent
clinician and adjudicator, having presented workshops
for teachers in Australia and New Zealand and in the
United States at the Music Teachers National Association
Conference, the National Piano Teachers Institute, the
World Piano Pedagogy Conference and numerous state MTA
conventions. Many of her solos and collections were
chosen for the National Federation of Music Clubs Junior
Festival Bulletin. She is a co-author of Alfred's
Premier Piano Course and more than 200 other educational
piano publications.

Back-to-back Fellows ~ Lenny Mastrogiacomo & Martha Mier
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